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Pop Up Nursery in a Pinch

With our first baby the room was painted and decorated by 20 weeks and we had little left to do than to fret over all the unnecessary crap we were sure to buy and seldom use on the first go-round. So sure, things would have been different for baby number two anyway: hand-me-down clothes, toys, gear…kid’s basically getting sloppy seconds across the board. But this second pregnancy has been significantly different.

For one, we’re living at our first post abroad in West Africa, which has meant being pregnant away from friends, family, and our doctors. It’s meant trips to London for milestone check ups. The most nesting I did at post was to team up with the Hubs to rearrange our son’s room for cohabitation when we eventually get back with baby.

Second, with the baby stuff already procured and the existing knowledge of how to raise another human in our back pockets, we’ve been able to relax a lot more and let life distract us from our impending family growth spurt (East African Safari at six months? Why not!).

But finally on medevac to the U.S. and settled into our Air BnB (tastefully decorated with a lifetime’s worth of someone else’s chachkies), it felt like something was majorly missing. We moved into someone else’s home. Full of someone else’s stuff. Lots of it. Yes, the room back home was ready for baby, but here it just felt like bringing baby home was an afterthought. Not to mention I’d failed to consider making our toddler feel at home. I packed an entire suitcase of toys for him, yes, but he was proud of his big boydinosaur bed at home and now I was asking him to just live in some unfamiliar bedroom for three months like it was nothing. Luckily my nesting instincts and love of Target kicked in and we were able to cobble together a Pop Up Nursery and Toddler’s Room to make us feel a little more at home.

‘Drawers’ for Clothing – Had these on hand from Ikea – these we bought as part of hanging closet storage for Baby Uno, they fold down flat and we were able to bring them from post easily for organization

Thanks very much and thanks for the question! I am a Nikon gal and have mostly shot the D5000, but recently upgraded to a D750 (the photos featured in this post). Canon is also a great bet. I would say you don’t have to spend a lot – just invest in a nice fixed lens (I mostly shoot a 35mm, f1.8) and watch a YouTube video or two about aperture. That gets you that beautiful dreamy soft background behind a sharp subject in little light for a pretty, natural looking picture. Hope that helps and happy shooting!